LONDON, July 21 /PRNewswire/ -- NHS Choices (http://www.nhs.uk), the digital 'front door' to the NHS, launches a new Live well section aimed to help African and African Caribbean people, and mixed-race people of African or African Caribbean descent, protect their health. Some conditions, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and prostate cancer, are more prevalent in people from these communities in the UK.

LONDON, July 21 /PRNewswire/ -- The CUPID (Cannabinoid Use in Progressive Inflammatory brain Disease) study at the Peninsula Medical School has reached an important milestone with the news that the full cohort of 493 patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) has been recruited to the programme.

CUPID is a clinical trial part-funded by the MS Society, which will evaluate whether tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - the main active ingredient in the cannabis plant and one of many compounds found in the organism - is able to slow the progression of MS.

It is an important study for people with MS, because current treatments either target the immune system in the early stages of MS, or ease specific symptoms such as muscle spasms or bladder problems.

BASINGSTOKE, England and PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania, July 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Shire Limited (LSE: SHP, NASDAQ: SHPGY), the global specialty biopharmaceutical company announces that non-executive director Robin Buchanan, due to his other commitments, will step down from the Board of Directors on 29 July 2008 on the completion of his term of office.

The Board thanks Mr. Buchanan for his many contributions during his five years with the Company.

Notes to editors

Shire Limited

BREGENZ, Austria, July 21 /PRNewswire/ --

- Opera "Tosca", Opening Ceremony and James Bond in Two Short Versions for TV channels

Satellite broadcast directly after the opening of the festival on 23 July 2008, from 1:30 - 1:50 p.m. (British Summer Time BST (= London Time) / 8:30 - 8:50 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time EDT (= New York City Time)

Pre-Cut TV Material By Satellite Downlink

The Bregenz Festival will make footage available to television stations for the purpose of media coverage of the festival. The pre-cut material - not overvoiced - will be available for downlink by satellite in Europe and North America on the opening day of the 63rd Bregenz Festival, 23 July, starting at 2:30 p.m. CEST (see below for international time zones).

Carbon dioxide has been getting a bad rap for the last few years, what with "Waterworld" and the IPCC's preference for French nuclear plants, but laser resurfacing appears to be an effective long-term treatment for facial wrinkles, according to a report in the July/August issue of Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery. So at least aging rich women will look good when the planet dies.

The carbon dioxide laser vaporizes water molecules inside and outside of cells, causing thermal damage to the surrounding tissue, the authors write as background information in the article. In response to this insult, the skin produces more of the protein collagen, which fills in wrinkles. "In addition to structural changes, the healing process frequently leads to pigmentary [coloring] changes," the authors write. "These changes in skin pigmentation may be desirable, such as when patients wish to remove solar evidence of aging; however, changes in pigmentation after treatment can often be a troubling adverse effect."

LONDON and SAN MATEO, California, July 21 /PRNewswire/ --

- Avistar's C3 Technology's User-Friendliness and Cost-Effectiveness Essential to Addressing Client Needs in Challenging Global Markets

- Expansion of Reseller Channel Key Component of Company's Strategy

Avistar Communications Corporation (Nasdaq: AVSR), a leading provider of unified visual communications solutions, has signed a strategic partnership agreement with City Information Services Limited (CityIS Ltd.), a global visual communications company. The agreement offers CityIS' clients a cost-effective, user-friendly and proven desktop videoconferencing solution that is built to easily interoperate with room solutions and extend video to the desktop, office, home or on the road.

After completing one of the longest running experiments ever done on a lake, researchers from the University of Alberta, University of Minnesota and the Freshwater Institute, contend that nitrogen control, in which the European Union and many other jurisdictions around the world are investing millions of dollars, is not effective and in fact, may actually increase the problem of cultural eutrophication.

The dramatic rise in cultural eutrophication—the addition of nutrients to a body of water due to human activity that often causes huge algal blooms, fish kills and other problems in lakes throughout the world—has resulted from increased deposits of nutrients to lakes, largely from human sewage and agricultural wastes.

If you really love the outdoors, you should never experience it, according to a new study by conservation biologists from the University of California, Berkeley.

The study compared parks in the San Francisco Bay Area that allow only quiet recreation such as hiking or dog walking with nearby nature reserves that allow no public access. Evidence of some native carnivore populations - coyote and bobcat - was more than five times lower in parks that allow public access than in neighboring reserves where humans don't tread, the researchers report.

The dearth of these animals in the parks carries implications beyond just these species. Since the carnivores in the study are often the top predators in their areas, these animals also shape the rest of their surrounding ecosystems. The flight of large animals from heavily visited parks for more serene surroundings could, in turn, influence populations of small animals and plants, the researchers said.

Elvira Fortunato and colleagues from the Centro de Investigação de Materiais (Cenimat/I3N), at Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, made the first Field Effect Transistor (FET) with a paper «interstrate» layer.

There is an increased interest in the use of biopolymers for low-cost electronic applications. Since cellulose is the Earth’s major biopolymer, some international teams have reported using paper as the physical support (substrate) of electronic devices but no one had used paper as an interstrate component of a FET.

The electrical performance of the new device rivals oxide-based thin film transistors (TFTs) produced on glass or crystalline silicon substrates. Full results will be published in September's in IEEE Electron Device Letters.